MCGEE, WILLIAM JOHN

born April 17, 1853, Farley, Iowa, U.S. died Sept. 4, 1912, Washington, D.C. American geologist and archaeologist who was noted for his pioneer studies of Pleistocene geology (1,600,000 to 10,000 years ago) of the upper Mississippi River valley and the stratigraphy of the Atlantic Coastal Plain. McGee was in charge of the U.S. Geological Survey division of the Atlantic Coastal Plain from 1883 until 1893, when he was appointed to the Bureau of American Ethnology. In 1903 he became head of the department of anthropology of the St. Louis World's Fair and in 1905 was appointed director of the St. Louis Art Museum. From 1907 until his death, he served with the Inland Waterways Commission and the Bureau of Soils of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. McGee's work included the application of geomorphology to the interpretation of landscape evolution, studies of hydrology, and the anthropology of American Indians. He wrote The Geology of the Head of Chesapeake Bay (1888), The Seri Indians (1898), and Outlines of Hydrology (1908).